Thursday, December 15, 2011

In all my years of marches and demonstrations, I had never been on apicket line at 3a.m. Yet here I was on this oh-so-early Tuesday morning,out on a quiet street on Oakland's waterfront alongside hundreds of myfellow Occupy activists. All of us were cold, tired -- and cheering louderthan ever. Why the noise? We had just received word that the portauthority had cancelled yet another work shift, and the docks would beclosed till morning.

"We did it!" a young woman behind me shouted.

And indeed we had -- not just here in the Bay Area, but up and down thewest coast, the Occupy movement claimed victory in undoubtedly its boldestaction so far.

From San Diego, CA to Anchorage, AK and over a dozen cities in between,the Occupy movement staged a coordinated day of action on Monday, December12 aimed at disrupting the coast's various ports, dubbed by activists"Wall Street on the Waterfront. Occupy Oakland had already shut down thePort of Oakland once as part of its general strike of 40,000 people onNovember 2, and put out the call to action for this protest to our sisterOccupy cities. We had done it before locally, but this time, with thenational focus and possibility for heightened repression, the stakes wereeven higher.

Occupy activists framed the port shutdown as a solidarity action insupport of two labor struggles along the coast. We highlighted theInternational Longshoreman and Warehouse Union (ILWU) dockworkers inLongview, WA, whose union members have been attacked both physically andpolitically by the international grain corporation EGA. Monday's actionalso stood in solidarity with independent truck-drivers at the Port of LosAngeles, who are paid bare-bone wages and denied the right to unionize.One of the main port terminals, SSA, is owned in large part by GoldmanSachs, the Wall Street financial giant that symbolizes the worst ofcorporate greed and corruption. Targeting the international commercialsupply chain, and supporting the port workers in their ongoing campaignsfor justice, was a direct, one-day strike to the economic power of the 1%.

For the Occupy movement itself, however, this was our opportunity toretake the initiative and claim new ground in an increasingly hostileatmosphere of repression. After the aggressive police evictions of mostOccupy encampments around the country last month, many wondered if and howthe movement would continue without its signature bases. The West CoastPort Shutdown, alongside the national "Occupy our Homes" direct actionsagainst foreclosures the week before, show that if anything, the movement,still only three months old, is moving in a more radical, more coordinateddirection.

I spent the day on the streets of Oakland, participating in the largest,and surprisingly perhaps least confrontational, action across the countrythat day. I arrived to Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hallat 12p.m. on Monday, where a small crowd was gathered. By that time,Occupy Oakland had already shut down the morning shift at the port, withhundreds of activists blocking port entrances starting at 6 a.m. Afterseveral hours at the plaza of music and occasional speeches, things pickedup at 3 p.m. with a larger crowd of over 1,000 people taking part in arally that featured veteran activist Angela Davis, hip-hop group Zion I,and, receiving the biggest applause of all, Scott Olson, the Iraq warveteran who became a movement hero after he was critically injured bypolice in an October demonstration.

The Occupy movement is not about standing around listening to speeches,though, and crowd members soon made it clear they were ready to march.Along the now-familiar march route from city hall to the port, and even atthe port gates, the Oakland Police Department was almost nowhere to beseen. Maybe they did not want to be seen shooting tear gas on peacefulprotesters again, or maybe there were too many of us to be able to do so,but one thing is for sure: they were not missed by the marchers.

By 5p.m. when we reached the dock terminal, the crowd had swelled to over3,000 people. Soon after our arrival, Boots Riley, the rapper/activist ofleftist hip-hop group The Coup and one of the lead organizers for the day,made a welcome announcement: the dockworkers had been sent home again! Wehad successfully shut down another shift, this time before we even set upour picket line. A roar went up in the crowd, and the festive atmospherecontinued with music and dancing alongside - and sometimes on top of - theempty big-rig trucks lining the road.

Word started coming in about the other Occupy actions around the country.We heard that activists in Portland and Longview, WA had successfullyforced the closure of their ports, while other cities' actions were unableto shut them down but still made a powerful presence. We also learned thatpolice had cracked down on activists in Seattle, San Diego, and out inHouston, which was one of several non-Pacific cities to hold solidarityactions the same day. According to the original Occupy Oakland resolutioncalling for the port shutdown, we had decided that if there were anypolice crackdowns, we would continue the blockade to the following day. Atthe makeshift General Assembly that took place at the port at 7p.m., aspeaker asked the thousands of people in the audience, "Will we keep ourword?" The rousing cheer from the crowd was all the answer anyone needed.

A small group of activists stayed to hold down the entrance until the nextshift at 3a.m. Along with most the crowd, I left in search of rest andfood. Most people called it a night, but I came back at the agreed-uponmeeting time of 12:30am to rejoin the ranks. The group that had stayed wasstill there blocking one entrance, and reportedly numbered between 150-200people. I do not know the exact number because I did not see that groupall night. Instead, with our newly assembled group of roughly 100returning protesters, we went to another port entrance, this one near JackLondon Square, where we had received word that the dockworkers would bearriving later. Communication between the two groups continued for thenext several hours, along with several rank-and-file dockworkersthemselves who provided the most crucial information.

We picketed the entrance for two hours, mostly uneventfully, letting theoccasional car out (but never in) and trying to stay warm. At 2:30a.m.,dockworkers started showing up in their cars, and several truckers pulledup in their big-rigs. Small teams of Occupy activists went to go talk toeach person in their vehicles, hoping to win their support despite thefact that many of them were losing money by not being able to work. Thedockworkers, part of the militant ILWU Local 10 with its own history ofshutting down the port, were almost universally supportive, if annoyedabout being up before the sun for no reason. The truckers, who areindependent contractors who do not have nearly the same amount of jobsecurity or monetary benefits, alternated between confusion, sympathy, andfrustration. They were willing to listen, even happier to talk, and mostimportantly, seemed willing to wait until 3a.m. to see what would happen.

As the scheduled shift time got closer, the picketers livened up with moreenergy, especially after a much-celebrated coffee delivery. At 3:15am, allthe dockworkers drove off, and we received word that the port had sentthem home. A cheer went up along the line, but we decided to stay a whilelonger just to make sure they would not call the workers back. Finally, at3:30am, we called it a victory and called it a night. The dockworkers weregone, and the few truckers left were allowed through to drop off theircontainers -- but without anyone there to unload them.

We had stood our ground, and despite threats and intimidation by the port,the corporate media, politicians, and even some union leaders, we hadsuccessfully shut down the Port of Oakland for over 24 hours. This was notsome small demonstration at the local bank branch -- the Occupy actiondirectly hit the bottom line of major multi-national corporations. IsaacKos-Read, director of external affairs for the Port of Oakland, said that"for the day, it was a loss of $4 million to $8 million, easily."

Beyond the economic impact, the West Coast Port Shutdown pushed the limitsof what is possible within the movement. In other countries, generalstrikes and economic blockades are common protest tactics -- here in theU.S., we had not seen them since the labor battles of the 1930s. But nowin just the last two months, the Occupy movement has done both, andstrategies that seemed impossible just yesterday are now on the table forlegitimate discussion.

At the same time, the action showed the continuing need for Occupyactivists to build coalitions beyond our ranks. While the November 2general strike had the support of the ILWU leadership and most localunions, this action did not. This had as much to do about legalobligations and internal union conflicts between the leadership and therank-and-file. Still, Occupy is at its best when it makes strongconnections with progressive unions and community organizations. These arethe groups who have fought for affordable housing, immigrant rights,racial justice, and other community concerns for years. Many of them arealready part of the Occupy movement, but this alliance-building takestime. We need leaders and members from these various groups to continuedoing the hard work to bring people together. The 1% would love nothingmore than to play divide and conquer. It is on us to make sure our unityis stronger than their attacks.

So now what? What's next for the Occupy movement, here in Oakland andaround the country? There are as many ideas as there are activists, but Iwould offer this proposal: while we continue to escalate our tacticstowards the 1%, our focus should be on deepening our relationship with the99% we say we speak for. This means connecting with local issues,occupying foreclosed homes and shuttered schools, going door-to-door in asmany neighborhoods and languages as possible. In other words: organizing.Let us use the winter as our chance to recruit our neighbors, coworkers,and relatives. Then we might be able to really build a strong, sustainablemovement in every corner of our crazy, beautiful United States.

But hey, that's just my opinion. Tonight I am going to the GeneralAssembly of Occupy Oakland to hear everyone else's, and to celebrate ourvictory down at the ports. After that, who knows, I might even get a goodnight's sleep.